postcards of the hanging

five minute sketching people

It’s called “Five-Minute Sketching People“, and is being published this coming week by Firefly in North America, and Apple in the UK. It’s my second book in a year (following “Creative Sketching Workshop”), and the focus of this one is, as you can guess, all about sketching people in, well, not very much time at all. Over a hundred and twenty pages of tips and techniques, with some lovely contributed images from some of my favourite sketching friends. It’s called, as I say, “Five Minute Sketching People”, which is a bit like “24 Hour Party People” but you know, shorter. The thing with me is that, as you might know, I don’t draw people as often as I draw things that are not people (except other sketchers – I drew loads of people at the symposium this summer), so when I do, I tend to do it very quickly, in five minutes or less. People tend to move about, or have opinions, and change expressions constantly. It can be far more intimidating than drawing, for example, fire hydrants. Sketching people quickly means you can capture their essence without thinking too much, and so in this book I talk about that using different themes and examples. From sketching motion, to perspective, to using different media, and tip on different poses, I hope readers gain a few insights!

The book is available on amazon, and maybe in other places too. There is, and this is exciting, a sister companion to this book called “Five Minute Sketching Architecture” by Liz Steel, my urban sketching friend from Australia. She is a prolific and rapid sketcher, and also an architect herself, and that book is one I am super excited to read. Why not get the pair!